John 1:50-51

4. Jesus’ Answer

John 1:50-51 The Son of Man

⁵¹ And he said to him, “I tell you all,

that indeed you will see the heaven open up,

and the angels of God going up and coming down

upon the Son of Man.”

Without explanation, the text changed from singular to plural [not always obvious in English translation]. The message was no longer part of a private conversation with Nathanael but was addressed to the group of disciples, including, indeed, the readers of the Gospel.

The mention of angels of God ascending and descending recalled the dream of Jacob.

And (Jacob) dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth,

the top of it reaching to heaven;

and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

And the LORD stood beside him and said,

“I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father

and the God of Isaac…”

Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said,

“Surely the LORD is in this place--and I did not know it!”

And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place!

This is none other than the house of God,

and this is the gate of heaven” [Genesis 28:12-17]

In later legend, Jacob's awesome place became identified with the site of the Temple. Soon, Jesus would speak of himself, of his own body, as the imminent replacement of the Temple [2:21].

As the disciples would increasingly relate to Jesus (to the extent that they remained with him), they would come to discover his true identity. In him they would have access to God; they would learn to recognise God present in Jesus; in time, they would hear Jesus say of himself: Before Abraham was, I am [8:58], identifying himself with the very name God had revealed to Moses.

Jesus referred to himself (for the first of about a dozen times) as the Son of Man – a title drawn from the Book of Daniel, where it referred to an unidentified figure who would at first be rejected but would return triumphantly to judge the world.

The title would be Jesus’ preferred title when referring to himself (though later tradition ignored it as a popular reference, choosing, instead, such titles as Lord, Christ or Messiah). Its use in relation to Jesus indicated that Jesus saw himself and the integrity he displayed as the criterion of authentic humanity and as the exemplar of mature human development and of human “life to the full”. (Jesus would judge the world in the sense that his integrity would be the criterion that would truly define genuine humanness and goodness.)

Trying to Identify Jesus

The narrative had listed a number of titles applied to Jesus.

John had called Jesus:

the lamb of God,
the one on whom the Spirit descended and remained,
the one coming after him but ranking ahead of him,
the one who was before him.

The disciples had called him:

Rabbi,
the Messiah,
the one about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote,
son of Joseph from Nazareth,
Son of God,
King of Israel.

What was the Message? Many of the titles were drawn from the rich Hebrew tradition contained in the scriptures. They summed up the insights and hopes of Israel. They were beautiful but inadequate.

The narrative would lead the disciples beyond the limited dreams of Israel to a far deeper insight into the role and impact of Jesus. Familiar words would take on unexpected meanings; and, with a whole new series of images, Jesus would reveal himself as source of living water, as light of the world, as good shepherd, etc..

For the disciples, and similarly, for the readers of the Gospel, as they learnt to “stay/remain” in Jesus, titles and images would become less important and give way to a personal, wordless journey into, and relationship with, the indefinable mystery of Jesus.

Next >> John 2:1-12